MEETING THE LATE GREAT PAUL NEWMAN!

Got back this morning from exercising Lola and was all set to jot down my thoughts about the national Spanish sport of returning to school which has dominated events for the past two weeks. And how, having registered my partner (P) and myself for intermediate Spanish classes at the local Ayuntamiento or Town Hall, this is starting to take over an increasingly large part of our lives...

But then I heard the news. Paul Newman had died. And everything dropped away and I was instantly taken back in time to the period I spent in LA in the late eighties - and my unforgettable meeting with him.

Although a glittering star of Hollywood for more than half a century, Paul Newman was starry in a very un-Hollywood way. He stayed away from the glitzy milieu, famously preferring his steak at home to the illusory hamburger outside. He was a clever businessman, a dedicated motor-racing enthusiast, an unabashed liberal and an active philanthropist with a clutch of crusades that he actually did something about, such as the plight of sick children.

Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he didn't frequent the trendy in-restaurants like Morton's which the most powerful players in Hollywood have made their unofficial canteen, particularly on Monday nights, ever since it first opened in 1979 and instantly became the choice of stars and billionaires alike. The DreamWorks deal was done there and David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Spielberg are all Monday regulars. So too are Ron Meyer (now an owner of Universal studios), Marvin Davis, the billionaire former owner of Twentieth Century Fox and Michael Eisner, the chairman of Disney. And not forgetting the post-Oscars party held there - the place for le tout Hollywood to see and be seen.

Paul Newman was, then, an intensely private person. And for all his charm, he was wary of his fans, once saying: "If people come up to me, perfect strangers and ask me to take off my dark glasses so they can have a look at my eyes, I just say, 'Is that all you think of me?' Are they going to write on my tombstone, 'Here lies Paul Newman who died a failure because his eyes turned brown'?" And another time, he snapped, "If people start treating you like a piece of meat or a long lost friend or feel they can become cuddly for the price of a five dollar movie ticket, then you shut them out."

So all the more remarkable that I not only got to see those famous blue eyes and sensual mouth up close and personal but also got to meet him...

It happened one weekday evening when Jeff, a friend and colleague of P's called to invite us out to dinner. "It'll be kinda surprise," he muttered.

Jeff, like most Americans, doesn't do understatement so we were unsure what to expect. A handsome and extremely eligible bachelor, he was, moreover, a member of every WASP Club in town - The California Club, Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club; you name it, he joined it - which included all the movers, shakers and, above all, old money of Los Angeles. In other words, Jeff was extremely well-connected.

Anyway, we found ourselves driving in Jeff's Ferrari along Interstate 405 towards Malibu Colony when he suddenly turned off and parked in front of a small, unprepossessing Italian restaurant. And I mean small. So small, you'd have to step outside to change your mind. So small, it didn't even merit valet parking! And this in Los Angeles, the home of valet parking!

Slightly bemused, we followed him inside and waited while he had a brief word with the owner at reception, at the same time glancing into the darkened interior. Without missing a beat, we were then escorted to the rear of the restaurant where the dim lighting was struggling but losing its battle with the gloomy atmosphere. Exchanging smiles through clenched teeth, P and I followed Jeff further into the dismal darkness, unsure how much longer we could humour him with our forced enthusiasm.

Just as we reached our table, he turned to the one immediately behind and gestured towards its occupant. And, as Jeff introduced us, I found myself staring into those unforgettable, piercing blue eyes, luminous even in the blackness all around. I don't remember exactly what I said or what Paul said. It's now all a blur. The rest of the evening, too, is something of a blur. All I do recall is his saying that this small, unassuming Italian restaurant was a favourite local of his where he could enjoy his favourite cuisine without paparazzis and hangers-on waiting outside to pounce...

Unlike at The Ivy in London where it's quite usual to find yourself seated next to a Hollywood star only too game for photo coverage in the next's press exiting the restaurant. But more on that in my next post...

WHAT'S IN A NAME...

My meeting earlier this week with Hannibal reminds me of another, more subtle, way Spain has changed since the Franco period.

Traditionally, calling out the name Maria or Jesus (not to mention Hannibal) on any city or village street in Andalucia made most heads turn in your direction. But, like everything else in Spain, names are also changing...

Forty or so years ago, girls were usually given - in addition to Maria and other religious names - abstract ones like Esperanza ('Hope') or Dulcinea ('Sweetness'). I'm thinking here of the current President of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, and of the teacher of the Spanish class I've just joined, Dulce, not to mention the numbers of Dolores ('Sorrow'), Conchita ('Conception'), Consuelo ('Consolation') or Mercedes ('Mercy') you're always coming across.

As in the case of girls' names, the church also encouraged the use of naming Spanish boys after biblical characters, particularly saints. Hence the multitude of Manuels, Pedros, Marcuses, Juans, Joses and Pepes of a certain age.

But that's all changed. According to the National Institute of Statistics, most new-born babies in Andalucia last year were named Alejandro or Lucia. And these names aren't even especially Andalucian, given that they were also the most popular names in Valencia, the Canary Islands and two other regions of Spain. To date, there are almost 8,000 boys named Alejandro and almost 10,000 girls named Lucia all under the age of one. Imagine a classroom teacher calling out either of those names in a few years' time...!

Such naming trends are evident in other parts of Spain too. In the Basque Country 25 years ago, the most popular names were Mikel and Leire. Now, in keeping with its more nationalist stance, Basque names like Iker and Irati predominate. Likewise in Catalonia, where regional names Feliu and Aina prevail.

Nonetheless, in common with parents all over the world, there will also be those who name their children after rock and sports stars. So, unlike in the case of all the Alejandros and Lucias, future classroom teachers should have no problem identifying the Amy Acosta, the Madonna Mendoza or the Ronaldo Rodriguez...

HANNIBAL OF THE ALPS

Always go for an early morning run when it's cool so took Lola with me this morning which greatly pleased Senora Noriega. Didn't please Lola so much which soon became clear when she started to drag and dawdle and become obsessively preoccupied with sniffing every dog that passed. And early morning is the time when all the dogs in the neighbourhood go for their 'paseo' - that peculiarly Spanish custom for families to go for a walk, usually in the cool of the evening, to see and, more importantly, be seen.

Anyway whatever the reason, Lola sniffed and sniffed. Every dog within pawing and sniffing distance. And not just the pedigrees but a bit of rough as well. Lola is, after all, no snob and seems to like nothing more than putting herself about and being a bit of a tease. But perhaps I'm being too harsh on her. Maybe all she was doing was just showing off her latest cut and pedicure...

I returned her to Senora Noriega as quickly as possible to avoid a hail of pleas and promises for more exercice later, showered and made a swift exit to the local bank to seek out Hannibal. But let me first explain...

I've had my current passport now for almost ten years and it's due for imminent renewal. But when you renew a passport in Spain, you need to send the application forms to the consular office in Madrid together with a photograph taken by an approved photographer and signed off by another in an approved occupation. Which is where Hannibal Alvarez comes in. He's the manager of the local bank and one of the few on the 'approved' list who's also known me for the requisite two-year period.

After signing off, without blinking, my unforgiving Cruella de Vil photo as a true likeness, Hannibal reminisced a bit about his summer break in the region from which he comes - the Spanish Pyrenees. Not exactly the Alps I know but the best Spain has to offer in terms of winter skiing. And from now on, whenever I think of him, a vision of Hannibal crossing the Alps inevitably springs to mind and I'm taken right back to school days and those dusty Roman history classes and their equally dusty cast of characters .....

NO BIG BANG

Returned yesterday from a couple of days in the UK to hand over to relatives and friends signed copies of my first novel, The De Clerambault Code, a psychological suspense thriller. Notwithstanding it is currently in the top 2% of Amazon UK book sales, I don't believe I need concern myself that those signed copies will go straight on eBay or be put up for immediate auction as if they were the latest JK Rowling...

Flying back over sodden, wind-swept, rain-lashed parts of the UK didn't present quite the same biblical images as last year's flooding but they came close. Interestingly, heavy rainfall in summer is a fact taken almost for granted now in the UK as are news items in both print and broadcast journalism about its effect on retail sales in terms of company losses on summer clothing, certain foods, garden furniture and so on. We read, for instance,that during cool weather the public eat more comfort food like chocolate - hence those sales are up - but fewer icecreams - so those sales are down. And all this bad news - poor sales and poor weather - hugely magnified during the current credit crunch.

And yet, poor summer weather isn't unknown in Spain. Yesterday, the leading item featured on Telemadrid - the only Spanish TV station we can access - was the previous evening's gigantic maelstrom of... hail! Madrid's municipal workers could be seen scooping up golf ball size hail stones from storm drains whilst rescue services were busy winching out stranded passengers from cars abandoned in flooded streets that were beginning to resemble small rivers. And some of Madrid's motorways, roads and tunnels were so flooded that numbers of commuters were unable to get to work by car and had to cram themselves into already crowded buses...

That same evening, too, we had a storm in Andalucia, though with nothing like the severity and ferocity of Madrid's. Everyone in the block was woken up late in the night by a huge, deafening crash and, even before the son et lumière thunder and lightening show took centre stage, I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose immediate, semi-comatose thought was whether the Large Hadron Collider had been activated a few hours early and a rogue proton taken a wrong turn down one of the 27 km long underground tunnels circling Geneva. And the end really was nigh...

But the end certainly isn't nigh - yet - for Señora Noriega, one of my apartment block's few permanent residents who lives on the ground floor and whom I bumped into on my return. I know she originated from Panama but my Spanish is as weak as her health so it's been impossible so far to establish if she is a relative, maybe even the wife, of former General Noriega of President Reagan/Contras fame. The surname is, after all, extremely rare. Only one is listed in the whole of the local telephone directory and that's hers...

Señora Noriega is a nice, elderly lady but she does possess one big drawback. And that is her dog. A yappy, blond bichon frise that she dotes on - as do so many elderly ladies here as in France and Italy. Maybe it's a southern Mediterranean thing. Whilst in the UK women take up golf or good causes when children fly the nest, here it's a dog!

In fact, you see as many canine peluquerias (grooming spas) around town as you do women's hairdressing salons. And since Señora Noriega can't get out much, she has the mobile peluqueria visit a couple of times a week. Just for a wash, blowdry and pedicure. For Lola, that is. Well, at least there's one gorgeous-looking female on the block...

PARTY CENTRAL - ONE MONTH ONLY!

Oh joy! Vacuum cleaners in full throttle! Never did I believe I’d be woken up by such a welcome din last Sunday.

Let me explain: I’ve been living for almost two years now in Andalusia in a block of flats owned mainly by Spaniards together with a sprinkling of North Europeans. I say ‘owned’ since you never see these owners from one year to the next, the only evidence of their existence being the junk mail piling up in the post box. Except, that is, for August when the whole of Madrid - probably the whole of Spain - descends on Andalusia.

Then the roads are jammed, the restaurants packed, the supermarket beggars on vacation and East European drug rings in clashes with the police and each other. In the latter case, I assume it’s all a question of turf war tactics. Russian and Albanian criminals seem to rotate between resorts along the Mediterranean coast. Doubtlessly they get hounded out of Italy and the Côte d’Azur and consider the southern Spanish resorts as a decent stopover for the summer. In much the same way, I suppose, as the Saudi Royal family moves its entire entourage here every August to its palace, El Rocio. Though why anyone would want to transfer from an ambient temperature of forty plus - in the shade - to one here of merely ten degrees less is an ongoing mystery. You would have thought a palace in Norway or Iceland would have been more practical…

The month of August then is a different animal. Cars drive bumper to bumper, their owners unfamiliar with the volume of traffic and finos downed in celebration of the holidays, suddenly swerve in all directions and shoot off into the dusty distance. Restaurants where normally you could get in with two days’ notice now require two weeks, their owners becoming increasingly precious about reservations, insisting that only early and late sittings are available when you know this is a ploy to fill them to standing room only. And this from restaurateurs who know they have to rely on expats like you in November and February when their establishments are deserted…

But don’t let us forget the chiringuitos, or beach bars, forced to operate in August like school canteens with swathes of Germans entering for lunch at noon, followed in strict order by Brits at one with the Spanish taking up the rear at three or four. And the whole culinary musical chairs repeated every night for dinner with Germans in at six, Brits at eight and Spanish at ten… One month’s profits to cover the rest of the year! Not to mention the North African street vendors selling everything from carved ibex to fake Louis Vuittons. Last night I overheard a British woman haggling, successfully, over an ugly, outsize lace tablecloth after which one of her precocious brood retorted: ‘And who’s going to inherit that then?’

I’m being too harsh though. Life as an expat in Spain has a lot to be said for it. Ask anyone who has tried it and you’ll hear great tales about the climate, the people, the lifestyle, the prices... so what’s the catch? Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks here will tell you that, too. It’s the bureaucracy. Whatever it is, you simply can’t do it by post - replying to letters is not a Spanish custom anyway - and you can’t do it by visiting just one desk in one government office, either.

Anyway, to return to the vacuum cleaners. Last Sunday, 31 August, is the day the whole of Spain traditionally returns home from its month-long vacation. And, from early morning, the din of cleaning, packing and screeching kids permeates the whole block as Spaniards lock up their apartments for another year and wistfully make their way back to Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

And, at long last, peace returns to this tiny corner of Spain and I can get back to my writing. Apart, that is, from the American expats with their customised alligator cowboy boots and bomb-shelter bellies for whom I’m about to do some fundraising on behalf of Barack Obama. But that’s, as they say, another story…